What an intrepid English traveller saw in Balochistan in the late 19th century

When English traveller Harry de Windt received an audience with Prince Alexander Dondukov-Korsakov, the governor of the Caucasus in the Russian Empire, in Tiflis, he pleaded for permission to travel to India through Central Asia.

“They should know better in London than to send you to me,” the governor told the Englishman, who by his mid-30s had undertaken and documented epic voyages, including one from Peking to Calais. “The War Minister in St Petersburg alone has the power to grant foreigners permission to visit Central Asia.” De Windt knew that a Russian official’s “no” was polite but firm.

At the time, the British and Russians viewed each other with mutual suspicion and were engaged in a rivalry for influence in Central Asia in what was known as the Great Game. There were even fears in Britain that the Russians would help Duleep Singh, the last maharaja of the Sikh Empire, who was in Russia to seek help to restore his rule over Punjab. There was virtually no chance of de Windt getting permission to travel across Central Asia through territories controlled by the Tsar.

“Gliding swiftly homewards along the now brilliantly lit boulevards, I realize for the first time that mine has been but a wild-goose chase after all; that if India is to be reached by land, it is not via Merz and Cabul, but by way of Persia and Baluchistan,” de Windt wrote in his book A Ride to India.

Staying on for a while in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), where he noticed Parsis from Bombay among the diverse crowds, de Windt hired a Persian-speaking man named Gerome Realini he said was a “Levantine Russian subject” to be his interpreter. From Tiflis till the end of their journey in Bombay, French served as the sole bridge between the two men.

The English traveller said it was the need of a companion that made him hire Realini, who was highly recommended by his acquaintances in Tiflis. “There is a very natural prejudice against the Levantine race, but my new acquaintance formed an exception to the rule,” de Windt wrote. “I never had reason to regret my bargain; a better servant, pluckier traveller, or cheerier companion no man could wish for.”

Before leaving for Persia, the two managed to obtain maps of Afghanistan and Balochistan, which de Windt said were “better and more accurate” than anything he had seen in England. “The most insignificant hamlets and unimportant camel-tracks and wells were set down with extraordinary precision, especially those in the districts around Kelat [Kalat],” he added.

They travelled by train from Tiflis to Baku and then across the Caspian to a Persian port near Rehst. When they reached Tehran, the Englishman pondered over the idea of getting to India via Kabul, but was dissuaded by the local authorities and instead chose to travel to the fabled cities of Isfahan and Shiraz and to Bushehr before taking a ship to Sonmiami, a Baloch port close to Karachi.

First impressions

After leaving Bushehr, they sailed close to the coast of Balochistan, which de Windt described as being 600 miles long. “On it there is one tree, a sickly stunted-looking thing, near the telegraph station of Gwadar, which serves as a landmark to native craft and a standing joke to the English sailor,” he wrote. “Planted some years since by a European, it has lived doggedly on, to the surprise of all, in this arid soil.”

De Windt said the “Tree of Baluchistan” was as well known to the Persian Gulf as Regent Circus or the Marble Arch to the London cabman. “With this solitary exception, not a trace of vegetation exists along the seaboard from the Persian to the Indian frontier,” he wrote. “Occasionally, at long intervals, a mud hut is seen, just showing that the country is inhabited, and that is all.”

The English traveller wrote that the “steep, rocky cliffs, with their sharp, spire-like summits, rising almost perpendicularly out of the blue sea,” were typical of desert wastes inland. His interpreter Realini was bored with the landscapes and frustrated by the heat. “And this is the India they talk so much about,” he told de Windt.

The two were unimpressed with what they saw of Sonmiami. “Imagine a howling wilderness of rock and scrub, stretching away to where, on the far horizon, some low hills cut the brazen sky-line,” de Windt wrote. “On the beach, the so-called town of Sonmiami – a collection of dilapidated mud huts, over which two or three hundred tattered red and yellow banners flutter in the breeze, and beneath which a small and shallow harbour emits a powerful odour of mud, sewage and rotten fish.”

De Windt noticed that every small house had a wind-catcher, something he described as “a queer-looking contrivance, in shape exactly like a prompter’s box, used in the summer heats to cool the interior of the dark stifling huts”.

Their relatively comfortable quarters were filled with mosquitoes and flies, which de Windt claimed were so many in number that the ceiling, walls and floors were made black by them. “One not only ate them with one’s food, but they inflicted a nasty, poisonous bite,” he added.

He described the locals as “dirty” but “decidedly friendly”. He appeared to find the local women attractive, noting that they “were much of the Egyptian type of face than Indian – light bronze complexions, straight regular features, and large, dark, expressive eyes”.

The women apparently smiled and nodded at the travellers as they passed by. “Their dress, a loose divided skirt of thin red stuff, and short jacket, with tight fitting sleeves, open at the breast, showed off their slight graceful figures and small, well-shaped hands and feet to perfection,” de Windt wrote. The local chief of Sonmiani even asked the Englishman if he found the Baloch women pretty, but de Windt chose to maintain a “dignified silence”. “The chief of Sonmiani was, for a Mohammedan, singularly lax,” he added.

Uncharted territory

They hired a local interpreter named Kamoo, whom the traveller described as a “good-looking native, clad in white”.

From the village on the Arabian Sea, de Windt set off on a camel for a 25-day journey to Kalat. Their caravan consisted of 18 camels and was escorted by 10 soldiers belonging to the chief of Beila. The Englishman described the soldiers as “smart-looking, well-built fellows in red tunics, white baggy trousers and dark blue turbans”. They carried Snider rifles and were armed with 20 rounds of ammunition each.

The journey was not without danger as some local rulers were suspicious of, or openly hostile to, outsiders.

The heat and rough terrain made the journey arduous. “The Baluch camel is not the easiest animal in existence, and I had, for the first few hours of the march, experienced all the miseries of mal de mer [sea sickness] brought on by a blazing sun and the rolling, unsteady gait of my ship of the desert,” de Windt wrote. “Though awkward in his paces, the Baluch camel is swift.”

Many of the places de Windt travelled through in Balochistan were uncharted territory for outsiders. “There are, I imagine, few countries practically so little known to Europeans as the one we were about to traverse,” he wrote. “I had, up to the time of my visit, often wondered that, with India so near, Baluchistan should have been so long allowed to remain the terra incognita it is.”

His views shifted after reaching Kalat. “It is impossible to conceive a more monotonous or uninteresting journey, from a traveller’s point of view, than that from the sea to Quetta – a distance (by my route) of nearly five hundred miles, during which I passed (with the exception of Kelat and Beila) but half a dozen villages worthy of the name, and met, outside the villages in question, a dozen human beings at the most.” At the time, Balochistan, comprising the Persian-ruled regions and those under the Khan of Kalat, had a population of just 450,000, spread over 225,000 square kilometres.

The English traveller noted that the Brahuis in the north claimed descent from Arab invaders who came through Persia, while the Baloch in the south believed their ancestors were nomadic Tatars who had settled in the region centuries earlier.

“Both races differ essentially in language and customs, and are subdivided into an infinitesimal number of smaller tribes under the command or rule of petty chiefs or khans,” de Windt wrote. “Although somewhat similar in appearance, the Brahuis are said to be morally and physically superior to their southern neighbours.”

As they travelled further inland, de Windt and Realini experienced nomadic Baloch culture and formed bonds with their escorts.

“The nights were deliciously cool, and the pleasantest part of the twenty four hours was perhaps that from 8 till 10 a.m., when dinner over and campfires lit, the Baluchis enlivened the caravan with song and dance,” de Windt said. “Baluch music is, though wild and mournful, pleasing. Some of the escort had fine voices, and sang to the accompaniment of a low, soft pipe of their favourite instrument.”

Realini carried generous stocks of raki and entertained the caravan by singing “Matushka Volga”, Cossack songs and performing dances, which made him popular with the locals.

Globetrotting life

After the caravan reached the outskirts of Kalat, the English-speaking Wazir arrived to invite de Windt to meet the Khan. This surprised the traveller, as he knew the Khan was not fond of the English. On the way to the palace, de Windt observed that the city, once a trading post, was sluggish and filthy, lacking a proper drainage system. He added that its inhabitants regularly suffered from smallpox, typhoid and typhus, though there were surprisingly few cases of cholera.

“Kelat was once a great channel for merchandise from Kandahar and Cabul to India, but the caravan trade is now insignificant,” he wrote. “There is, in the season, a considerable traffic in dates, but that is all, for the roads to Persia and Afghanistan are very unsafe.”

Just weeks before his visit, a large caravan bound for Kerman in Persia had been attacked in the frontier town of Kharan. “Few now attempt the journey, most of the goods being sent to Quetta, and thence by rail to various parts of India, or by sea to Persia,” de Windt said.

The Khan relied mainly on Afghan soldiers, who also guarded his palace. De Windt observed a steady inflow of goods from Russia and Central Asia, including the same rifles used by the Tsar’s soldiers.

“The balcony on which we were received is poised at a dizzy height over the beehive-looking dwellings and narrow, tortuous streets of the brown city, which today were bathed in sunshine,” de Windt wrote, adding that the Khan’s residence was well chosen. “The pestilent stenches of his capital cannot ascend to his height, only the scent of hay and clover-fields, and the distant murmur of a large population, while a glorious panorama of emerald-green plain stretches away to a rocky, picturesque range of hills on the horizon.”

Mir Khudadad, the Khan of Kalat, was in his early 60s at the time, and de Windt described him as “very dark, even for a Baluch”. Their conversation centred largely on the Great Game and how the English assessed the Russian threat.

“Will England reach Kandahar before Russia takes Herat?” the Khan asked de Windt, who was puzzled by the question and said he could not say.

The Khan expressed personal enmity towards Abdur Rehman, the Ameer of Afghanistan, and was surprised to learn that the English considered the Afghan ruler an ally. “Tell them from me… tell Queen Victoria from me that it is not so,” the Khan warned. “Tell her to beware of Abdur Rehman. He is her enemy.”

He asked whether it was true that the Tsar did not allow Muslims to pray in Central Asia. When de Windt denied this, the Khan laughed and said he had been told so by the Englishman’s own countrymen.

Before de Windt left the palace, he was presented with a photograph of the Khan taken during his visit to the Viceroy of India in Quetta, and was asked to deliver it to the Parliament.

The English traveller proceeded to Quetta via Magachar and Mastung, which he said – with its fruit gardens and fig and olive trees – felt like a town in the Pyrenees. From Quetta, he travelled by train to Karachi and then onwards to Bombay.

Harry de Windt would continue his globetrotting life, including a trek from New York to Paris by land, crossing the Bering Strait into Russia and travelling onwards to Europe. He documented these journeys in detail, much as he did his travels through Balochistan.

Ajay Kamalakaran is a writer, primarily based in Mumbai. His latest book, Colombo: Port of Call, was published by Penguin Random House in January 2026.